Comparison of Electron Cloud Simulation and Experiments in the High-Current Experiment

Contaminating clouds of electrons are a common concern for accelerators of positive-charged particles, but there are some unique aspects of heavy-ion accelerators for fusion and high-energy density physics which make modeling such clouds especially challenging. In particular, self-consistent electron and ion simulation is required, including a particle advance scheme which can follow electrons in regions where electrons are strongly, weakly, and un-magnetized. We describe our approach to such self-consistency, and in particular a scheme for interpolating between full-orbit (Boris) and drift-kinetic particle pushes that enables electron time steps long compared to the typical gyro period in the magnets. We present tests and applications: simulation of electron clouds produced by three different kinds of sources indicates the sensitivity of the cloud shape to the nature of the source; first-of-a-kind self-consistent simulation of electron-cloud experiments on the High-Current Experiment (HCX) at LBNL, in which the machine can be flooded with electrons released by impact of the ion beam on an end plate, demonstrate the ability to reproduce key features of the ion-beam phase space; and simulation of a two-stream instability of thin beams in a magnetic field demonstrate the ability of the large-timestep mover to accurately calculate the instability